Medical Malpractice

Health care professionals, including doctors, nurses, surgeons, anesthesiologists, therapists, pharmacists and hospital staff, must abide by an appropriate standard of care in treating patients. Although medical professionals are, in our culture, held in high regard, they do make mistakes.  When they do, traumatic injuries and death often are the result. As many as 1 out of every 25 hospital patients is injured by a medical mistake; 44,000 to 98,000 people die each year from medical errors, according to the federal Agency for Health Care Research and Quality.  Kopelman Law Group helps hold medical professionals accountable and responsible for their negligence.

Improper conduct can include:

• Misdiagnosing diseases
• Failure to diagnose
• Prescribing the wrong or conflicting medication
• Delaying or failing to provide treatment
• Surgical errors
• Anesthesia mistakes
• Child delivery mistakes

Mistakes made during birth can result in maternal as well as infant injuries, including cerebral palsy, brachial injuries, developmental problems, brain injuries and death.

Georgia law requires that victims of malpractice obtain a special, written, expert opinion, in the form of an affidavit, before they are legally entitled to even file a lawsuit and serve discovery upon the defendants. In this special written opinion, a qualified expert healthcare provider must identify care and treatment that is below the accepted standards of practice in the community.

As a result, medical malpractice cases are a particularly complex type of personal injury claim. They can be more difficult to prosecute because they turn on technical and sometimes complex issues of medicine and health care.

The required investigation can be a daunting task for a trained lawyer, let alone a victim of medical malpractice or the family of a victim. There is very little in the experience of the average lawyer, let alone a non-lawyer, that could prepare him or her to investigate, file and prosecute a medical malpractice case successfully, so it is vital to retain a lawyer with extensive experience in these areas.